


unscripted

by imaginedfables



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: Boxer!AU, Character Explorations, F/M, Lets be real you all know this is an AU, also, because this is still Ashley's bday gift, i got this you guys just trust me, kate my daughter my child she is a mess and rightfully so, seriously though, she is trying okay, the one where seth is trying too
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-25 18:53:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10770309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginedfables/pseuds/imaginedfables
Summary: "You're a lot of things, Princess," he scoffs, bitterness dripping from every word. "But sweet ain't one of them."Or: an exposition on the choice of fight or flight.





	unscripted

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alwaysupatnight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alwaysupatnight/gifts).



> Happy Late-Birthday Present, my dear.  
> Thank you for being amazing. and encouraging. and hilarious. and above all, a great friend.  
> Here, another monster fic for you to mother for me.

_“But my heart is an old house_

_(the kind my mother grew up in)_

_Hell to heat and cool and faulty in the wiring_

_And though it’s nice to look at_

_I have no business inviting others in.”_

_- **Clementine Von Radics**_

…

“You alright, Kid?”

His words are a low rasp against her collarbone, heavy and warm as they settle between the valley of her breasts underneath the cheap flannel blanket he’d pulled over them a few minutes ago, despite the almost intolerable humidity just outside their window.

A chivalrous attempt to protect her modesty, no doubt.

Kate appreciates the sentiment, even if she’s not quite sure how much left there is to protect from a man who’d had his head buried between her thighs just an hour earlier.

His fingers – calloused and strong and still bruised from his last fight – pause the path they’d been charting across her hipbones, and she’s reminded that he’s still waiting for an answer.  

“I’m good,” she murmurs, eyes fixed on the dusty white fan rotating back and forth in the corner of the room. The sound of its motor is so loud it borders on obnoxious, but then again, there’s not much one can expect in terms of quality when staying in a motel that charges by the hour.

He’d paid cash and signed into the guest book with a name that she knows is an alias.  

It must be, because she’d given the same to him.

They were not here to fall in love.  

“You sure?” he questions, and she hates the way her heart speeds up at the genuine concern in his voice. It makes her feel vulnerable – _exposed_ – on a night when she’d set out to prove a point with so much determination that she’d sent her conscious to hell and trusted this stranger with her body in a way she’d never allowed anyone else to touch her before.

If she closes her eyes the whole thing feels more like a dream than anything else, and Kate can almost pretend she’s back home in Bethel instead of in the shitty side of downtown Houston; safe and sheltered and _pure_ under God’s eyes.

But then she opens them, and the sheets they’re lying on are still stained – no, _tainted_ – with all the evidence anyone could ever need to prove her loss of innocence and she is _glad_ for it. Glad that there will finally be something somewhere out in the world that shows that she is more than a vessel for others to bury their expectations in.

More than only what the world needs her to be.

She’s half tempted to take the sheets back home with her; hang them outside her window like a bright, scarlet letter for her entire congregation to see.

_‘Here lives Kate Fuller: town whore.’_

If they’re going to brand her with every label their arrogant and hypocritical words could whisper between bible verses – if all she’d be known as was as the poison that slipped out of their mouths as they clicked their tongues at her with their faux lamentations – then she’d willfully pick the one title guaranteed to outs her from their good graces once and for all.

It still beats, _‘girl with the dead mother’_ any day of the week.

Maybe then they’d have something worthwhile to gossip over before mass, instead of spending all their time chattering behind their silk gloves about how many times they’d seen her father drinking at the bar or her brother picking a fight or reminisce about the hollowness in her mother’s eyes.

Maybe then she’d finally be left alone and free to build a life of her own.  

Except, she knows she’s not that brave, or else she would have given this man her name.

This man, who is still studying her face for something she’s not sure herself he’ll find; something like satisfaction or hope or regret; something that proves to them both she hasn’t quite lost her mind, as backed by the fact that she’d given him the one thing girls like her where supposed to cherish and protect the most, gifted only to the man who’d gifted them with a pretty ring and a promise of _forever_ in return.

“I’m good,” she repeats, finally turning her head just enough to meet his brown eyes, and the kindness in them reminds her of why she’d held onto his hand and followed him into his car. “You don’t have anything to worry about.”

And he really doesn’t.

She hadn’t spotted him with his gorgeous face and the tattooed flames peeking out from the top of his black Henley and at least a decade on her and thought, _‘this is the man I’ll marry.’_

She might be about as big as a small-town girl gets, but a fool she is not.  

No.

Instead, she’d met him and he’d been funny in a very corny kind of way that bordered on self-depreciatory a little too much to be an act while trying to pull off the cocky asshole vibe he so obviously had going for him and Kate had felt in her gut that he wouldn’t be a bastard if she were to ask him to spend the night.

Or part of it, as the situation calls for.

Just one night, where she did something meant only for her.

Only because she could. Only because she wanted to. Only because it was her choice, and no one else got to give their opinion on it or had to know. 

And she’d been right.

“You should have told me,” he says, a small hint of an accusation simmering below the surface that sounds a lot more like guilt she really wishes it is not.

She doesn’t want his fucking pity.

Not after he’d been the first person to treat her like an adult capable of making her own choices in her entire life. Not after he’d taken off her clothes and kissed her as he buried himself inside of her. Not after he’d been everything she needed, if only for a single night.

If it was pity she wanted, she would have asked Kyle to take her to the church dance.  

But this is her night, and no one gets to tell her how she’s supposed to feel about it.

Not even the man she shared it with.

“Would it have really made a difference?” she asks in return, shifting her entire body to face his now and doing her best to ignore the dull throb between her legs at the sudden movement. “Would you have driven me home instead if I’d told you I was a virgin? Are you gonna lecture me on morality now?”

There’s a challenge in her voice – a _dare_ for him to tell her what they did was a mistake, to deny this had been inevitable from the moment they’d first spoken to each other – and he doesn’t miss the warning.

“Sweetheart, I’m the last one who’ll ever judge you for doing what you want to do,” he admits, and then a rueful smirk splits across his face and the edges of his eyes crinkle with mirth before he dips his head forwards just long enough to steal a peck against her lips. He pulls back, lifting a hand high enough to reach her face so he can brush his thumb across her cheekbone. “I’m all for feminism and women empowerment and the whole shebang, pun intended, but I do hope you know that if I’d known I would have at least coughed up for a nicer room for us.”

She wants to be offended – really, she _does_ – but the whole thing is so ridiculous and the humor on his face lets her know he’s aware of it as well and it’s then that she realizes that he’d done it on purpose to dissipate her building anger and concede her point without risking saying the wrong thing and ruining the night and Kate laughs.

She truly, _sincerely_ , laughs.

“And they say chivalry is dead,” she grins back, playfully shoving her fist against his thick shoulder when he tries to steal another kiss.

“Not when Seth Gecko’s on the case,” he declares, and it takes her a second to realize he’d said as much when he’s got her pinned beneath him again and asks, “so, you gonna give me your real name now?”

She freezes.

And, as much as she’d been preaching to herself about this being her choice, as much as she wants to be brave and bold, it doesn’t stop her from trembling under the weight and repercussions of her would-be confession.

He’s trying to build a connection with her – a solid link tying them together that she wouldn’t be able to hide from the world for as long as she wanted, something that could be taken from her and exposed and something that would make this whole experience _real_ beyond her control – and it terrifies her.  

She panics.

“I have to go,” she whispers, and there’s nothing playful about the way she uses both her hands to shove his body off of her or about the ache in her limbs as the adrenaline races through her while she pulls on her clothes and reaches for her phone, fingers quickly requesting an Uber and thanking God when it shows there’s one available just down the street.   

“Hey, wait! Just hold on a second!” he pleads, standing up to pull his own clothes back on while trying his best not to intimidate her. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to and you’re more than free to go, but at least let me take you home,” he bargains. “It’s late and it’s not safe to be out there alone.”

“I’ll be fine,” she promises, relieved when the notification on her phone announces her car has arrived. “Trust me, it’s just better this way.”

“I think the _brush-off_ is supposed to be my line,” he grumbles, still not convinced about her going off on her own, and she’s never been more sure she made the right choice when she’d picked him.

“You would never,” she smiles sadly, allowing herself just two seconds to mourn for something that could never be, before stopping to press a tender kiss against the scruff on his cheek. “Goodbye, Seth.”

He sighs in defeat. “Take care, Princess.”

And then she’s out the door and on her way home.

…

**Author's Note:**

> Guess who's back???


End file.
